King’s College London – Midsummer Water Day

The Midsummer Water Day. Everyone should come along to this, it’s shaping up to be a really exciting day!

Early career researchers at King’s have been given a foyer space at the Midsummer Water Day at KCL. We will be looking to recreate (and I think, really reimagine) the ‘word hoard’ project which began life thanks to the 2013 Colm Cille project. See King’s PhD candidate and keeper of the hoard Hana’s blog for info on its origins.

From midday till 5:30 on June 21, we will be exploring water words (from sea-kennings to weather-names) and reading some Old English poetry and prose, and I’m also hoping to put some sound/ visual bits and piece together. I’ll be pouncing on unsuspecting but willing members of the public to get them talking about the past, the present, translation, and the place of Old English poetry today.

For now, please also check out the @OEwordhord on twitter. Hana has already started to collect Old English water words and will RT word donations. If you have a favourite Old English water-related word, or you have an English word you’d like translated, tweet using the hashtag #OEwater. (I’ve already started sending in mine!)

On the 21 June we’ll be using these words with members of the public, inviting people to read them, say them, explore them. We’ll be projecting some of the best up on a word wall.

There will be plenty of other activities going on at the Mid Summer Water Day, with talks and performances from academics and spoken word artists. And of course, the Museum of Water is just next door to explore. See the full schedule for the day here!